A New Era- Part Six
by Saint
Summary: Jean is awake and ready to share some secrets. What will happen next as the X-men meet their new mutant for the last time? 2nd to last part.


I'm getting there. More and more to think about in this one. Let me know what you think!  
  
  
  
  
(Scott)   
  
The flight back was a long silent one. Each member of the team sat quietly in his or her seat, considering what had happened. Hank sat staring off out the window, uncharacteristic for the genius Beast. Wolverine just sat there; he didn't even pop his claws in and out or anything. He just sat there. Rogue played with her hair and winced every time she forgot her wounds and brushed up against them. Bobby kept sighing and shifting his weight. It was like someone on the plane had the mutant ability to remove everyone's tongues.   
  
I sat and made out a report, trying to be a diligent leader. I wanted to get every detail recorded so that I didn't miss anything later.   
  
"Let's see," I thought to myself writing, "Young looking mutant, actual age, unknown. Black hair, red eyes, black clothing. Seems to have powers that include: extensive telepathy including mind control, flight of some sort, possibly from telekinesis, teleportation, some sort of power over time and space... and who knows what else. He freakin' short-circuited Warren when he did whatever he did to him the other night."  
  
It was like his powers were boundless. There was nothing I could think of that we could do either to converse with him, or to capture him or to discover what is really truly happening. I had to fight back anger at him turning the team against each other. He was so powerful and then at the same time both malicious and benign. He would let us beat each other into the ground and then he would bring someone back to life.   
  
Frustrated, I kept writing, filling in every detail. Somehow, we had to figure out what this guy was. I knew why the Professor was so adamant about me finding him, now I just needed to figure out how to do it right.  
  
(Remy)  
  
It took me ten minutes to get Jean settled down. She was not herself. She was delirious and going on and on about how she knew this new mutant and she had to talk to Scott.  
  
"Settle down cher," I said trying to be calm and at the same time stay strong against her so she couldn't run. "Scott will be 'ere soon. You can talk to him then, no?"  
  
"He doesn't understand!" Jean said desperate. It was like she didn't even acknowledge me. She just kept fighting to get free from my grip and talking. "He doesn't understand! Scott, I have to talk to Scott."  
  
Like I said, ten minutes and she finally settled down. She just laid there and talked softly to herself that she knew what was going on. Finally Warren came down the stairs.   
  
"It's 'bout time Warren," I said more frustrated with her than with him. "Come 'ere and hear dis. She says she knows de mutant boy we lookin' for."  
  
Warren walked over and stood over her. She squinted and smiled a little.  
  
"Scott?" she whispered. "Is that you?"  
  
"No, its Warren, Jean," he said kindly. "Scott will be home soon."  
  
She faded away again into her trance and talking and the two of us headed for the other room to try and call the Blackbird. Scott had to know what was going on.   
  
(Bobby)  
  
I was in a lot of pain. Logan definitely isn't my first choice of someone from the X-men to fight. Maybe Jubilee... she wouldn't have left 2 inch gashes in my arms and legs. Even after I de-iced I had wounds. The bruises on my face and the cut on my chin surprisingly hurt the worst. The rest were stitched up and would heal quickly with all the medical resources we had back at the Mansion, but my face just hurt constantly. Almost made me not want to talk, almost.   
  
I was thinking about the fight. I remembered everything in clear detail; every kick, slash, punch and block. Logan had really done a number on me a couple times. I could see now why he beat me every single time we did exercises together in the danger room.   
  
Suddenly I was woken from my thoughts about the fight by a beeping noise. It was the com up front.   
  
"Scott," Storm said from the front of the plane, "It's Warren. He says that Jean is awake."  
  
The silence that had so completely filled the plane seconds ago was broken by everyone talking at once. Scott headed up to the front of the plane and we could hear his voice through the door talking with Warren.  
  
Finally he came back and looked at us half-smiling. "Jean is awake. She's not completely coherent but Warren says she says she knows what this guy is all about. Hopefully, if Jean is ok, we can finally get some answers."  
  
He spoke business-like trying hard not let on how terribly excited he was that his wife was ok, but we all knew, and that was enough. I think I even saw Logan crack a little smile when we got the word. Truth was, we were all excited, we were just hurtin' too bad to jump up and down.   
  
So finally we were going to get some answers. Whoever this guy was, he was powerful, and while we had faced powerful foes before, we knew usually what to expect from them. This guy was completely unpredictable.   
  
I looked over at Logan. He was sitting quietly still, already healed from the fight. He noticed I was looking at him and looked up at me.   
  
"Sorry 'bout that, kid," he said pointing to my shoulder with the deepest wound.   
  
That was probably the warmest I had ever seen good old Wolverine. He even smiled a little when I told him I'd kick his a good one next time we faced a mind-controlling mysterious mutant.   
  
"I'm not that sorry," he said gruffly. "But you did ok."  
  
Suddenly, our conversation was over. The Blackbird rocked in the air and alarms went off all around.   
  
"Scott! I've lost controls!" came Storm's scream from the front of the plane. "Everything is locking up!"   
  
"Buckle in everyone!" Scott yelled as he stumbled to the front of the shaking plane.   
  
I looked around as I buckled in. Hank was looking out the window at the wing and saying nothing looked wrong outside of the plane. Rogue looked kinda pale. Logan just sat there and shook his head complaining about how he hated this bloody thing in the first place. Piotr looked almost like part of the wall between his armor and how still he was sitting.   
  
We heard Scott come over the intercom; they had accidentally turned it on while frantically trying to keep the plane in the air.  
  
"Why won't this thing balance out!"   
  
"Failures in navigation and control systems," came Bishops voice. "I cannot keep this plane in the air if we can't fix the controls."  
  
"Damnit Bishop," Scott said angrily. "turn that..."   
  
He never finished the sentence. The plane rocked hard again and we heard Scott groan and then go silent. Storm's voice came next.  
  
"He's bleeding, Bishop. Bishop? Bishop!" Both Bishop and Scott must have gotten knocked out by that last shake. The plane shook again.  
  
We felt the plane tip so that the nose was pointing more down and immediately we began to lose altitude. Everyone started to freak out. Hank screamed... "The ground is coming fast!"  
  
I hit my com, "Storm! Storm, what's happening?" There was no response. "She must have gotten knocked out from that last shake."  
  
I felt things start to shake all around. The hull of the ship was coming apart as we fell. Suddenly the lights went out and we were left in the dark, the plane illuminated only by the few windows letting in the pale dusk light. We kept falling.  
  
I hadn't died yet this adventure but suddenly all that stuff people talk about when you're about to die, actually happened. I saw scenes from my life, glad that I had done so much to help, wished I could have done more. Suddenly, I felt another rock and then everything went dark.  
  
  
(Remy)  
  
Warren and I had finished talking to Scott and walked back to find Jean. She was still there talking to herself.   
  
"I will stay 'ere wit her," I told Warren. "Go get the docking bay ready for the Blackbird."  
  
He agreed and walked off to go get things together to tend to the wounds of everyone when the Blackbird landed. I sat down in a chair next to Jean and turned on the TV. At first, it was hard to concentrate with Jean running her mouth, constantly saying the same thing. Then I found an old rerun of Dukes of Hazard and I stopped paying attention to Jean altogether. Daisy reminded me of Rogue.   
  
Suddenly, I heard something that caught my attention. It was Jean, saying something more than "I know", "Scott" or "he doesn't understand." She said my name.  
  
"Remy," she said a second time. I jumped up and looked down into her eyes. They were strikingly peaceful.   
  
"I am here, cher" I said calmly. "How are you?"  
  
"Remy," she said again like there was something important to tell me. "Something is wrong."  
  
"What?" before I could ask anything more my com beeped.  
  
"Remy," Warren said from the docking bay. "Something is wrong."   
  
"What?" I said again. I began to think that there was an echo in the room.   
  
"It's the Blackbird," my angelic friend continued. "It's disappeared."   
  
"What do ya mean it disappeared, ami?"   
  
"I mean, I was tracking it with our tracking devices to find out how much time I had until they arrived and then suddenly, it was gone. They aren't answering the com either."  
  
I looked down at Jean realizing she had said that something was wrong just before Warren had. She just smiled at me.   
  
"Ok ami, what do we do?" I said into my com.   
  
"I have no idea. One of us could try and head towards their last position and see if we could find them."  
  
Before I got a chance to answer something happened that surprised me. I felt that same nausea that I had just before my cards, and my hand along with them, had exploded. I got dizzy and had to grab Jean's table to keep myself on my feet. I looked down at her and she smiled at me again but my vision started to fade. Things looked like a fuzzy TV. Everything was blurred and then my head just started aching... Everything hurt... then everything went black.   
  
  
(Scott)  
  
I woke up lying on stone.   
  
"Stone?" I thought to myself. I sat up and found that I was nowhere near the Blackbird but the rest of team was there. We were all just waking up. We were on the summit of some sort of mountain. There were nothing but more mountains in every direction and the sky was as clear as it could be.   
  
"Everyone ok?" I asked. Then someone caught my eye, two people actually. "Remy? Warren? How the heck did you guys get here? Where's Jean?"  
  
"You've got us Scott," said Warren. "Things got all blurry and then I was here, waking up next to all of you."  
  
"Hey Slim," came Logan's gruff voice. "I think I know how we got here."   
  
Everyone turned to look at Logan but he wasn't looking at us. He was looking into the sky where I had just looked. It was him. The mutant was here. He was flying over us, watching us there, watching him.   
  
"Are we fighting or are we waiting?" Remy asked, anxious to get some revenge on the guy that blew his hands to bits.   
  
"We wait," I said, disappointing half the team when I did.   
  
He just sat there hovering just beyond our reaches and looking at us. His red eyes seemed to be glowing more than ever. His black hair seemed blacker and his whole appearance seemed stronger, like he was more confident. Wind was blowing across the mountain and it made him seem all the more mysterious as his hair and his clothes billowed, but still, he said nothing and only watched.   
  
"I am Scott Summers, a mutant like yourself," I started out, hoping that he would communicate with me. "We are the X-men, a group of mutants dedicated to making the world safe for both humans and mutants alike. We hope that somehow we can put the events of that last couple of days behind us and learn from each other."  
  
At the end of that last sentence he cocked his head to the side like he had in the video I had watched of him and Remy just before Remy's hand got blown off. He grinned a little. I thought that maybe, just maybe I had gotten through to him.   
  
Suddenly I heard a small voice in my head, completely new to me. It spoke gently but made it's point clearly.  
  
"Prepare to fight."  
  
The mutant's eyes began to glow red even more and I felt every muscle in my body tense up.   
  
"Prepare to fight," I heard again. Then he flew straight at us...  
  
  
Ok guys... the last part to the story is coming soon... Like it so far? Let me know what you all think. Please Review even if you just want to flame me, I can always use both praise and criticism. Thanks!  



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